Plastic bags are commonly known and used for bagging small items, such as retail and commercial items and sandwich and like food items and the like. These bags commonly include a sealing strip of the tongue-and-groove type which interlocks for rendering the bag air tight. This type of bag commonly has a protruding strip extending across the mouth or opening of the bag, and there is a receiving and mating strip extending across the mouth of the bag opposite from the first strip, such that the two strips can be pressed toward each other into a sealed tongue-and-groove or mating relationship when pressure is applied from one end of the strips and continuously therealong to the other end of the strips. In present day common practice, this type of tongue-and-groove sealing bag is commonly sealed or has its strips interlocked by having a person run his or her fingers along the strips for joining the mating strips together. However, this frequently results in a misalignment of the tongue-and-groove sections, such that they do not actually interlock or mate, and then the bag is not sealed as desired. Further, this type of attempt to manually seal the bag requires careful attention and effort for aligning the strips and then exerting the correct pressure and it requires the time for aligning the strips and then running the fingers along the strips to effect the final interlocking or sealing.
The present invention provides a device which is utilized for effecting the sealing of the interlocking tongue-and-groove type of bag strips, and it accomplishes this by an inexpensive, easily manufactured, easily operated, and small and simplified device used in either a home or industrial application. It should of course be understood that in an industrial application, these types of plastic bags are commonly used for containing various goods, such as a number of small parts, and it is therefore required that the assembly line be established for sealing the bag after the goods are inserted, and this is tedious and time consuming when done manually as in the common practice of today.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,191,230 shows one type of a plastic bag and, for the present invention, it shows a tongue-and-groove type of the sealing strips which can be utilized on bags which can be sealed by the device of the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,845 shows a bag strip sealing device which has two opposed and oppositely facing surfaces through which the sealing strip can be moved for purposes of joining the strips together. However, that device does not show a lead-in or opening in the unit for purposes of entry of the bag strips, and more particularly, it does not show that the two opposing surfaces than converge along their lengths so that they can progressively urge the tongue-and-groove strips into mating relationship. Importantly, the last mentioned patent does not show a device which receives the strip end of the plastic bag which can then be slid relative to the device, for the closing purposes mentioned, in that, the patent does not show extending arms in cantilever form, as in the present invention, for receiving the bag and sliding it between the arms. U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,982 shows the sealing strips of a bag joined by two rollers which are arranged only in an industrial environment in that it does not propose that a single bag be inserted between the rollers, as in the present invention, and, it shows rollers which preclude the slipping of the bag between the rollers in the axial direction of the rollers, as in the present invention. Likewise, the same limitations appear in U.S. Pat. No. 4,268,938 where rollers are shown, but the bag cannot be slid axially of the rollers to a position between the rollers, for the sealing function, as in the present invention. At most, the rollers in the latter patent require separate maneuvering of an upper roller down into engagement position with a lower roller for purposes of the sealing, and the present invention does not require any additional laborious maneuvering. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,467 also shows rollers which run along sealing strips of a bag, but, again, the rollers are not arranged for insertion of the bag from the ends of the rollers and into position for sealing.
Accordingly, the present invention differs from the prior art in that it provides for the ready insertion of the sealing strips of an individual or discrete plastic bag between two opposed surfaces which bear inwardly on the bag and along the strips thereof for purposes of joining the strips into interlocked or mating position, and this is all accomplished by one continuous sweep of the bag into the device and therealong for the final desired sealing of the bag.
Still further, the present invention is disclosed in several species, and these species have the aforementioned advantages and features, and, in addition, there is the feature of accomodating plastic bags of different thicknesses across the mating strips thereof, such as for large or heavy bags and for small or lighter bags. In fact, certain of the species disclosed herein are particularly made for accomodating bags of two different thicknesses, and other species disclosed herein are made for accomodating bags of different thicknesses, since the device is capable of elastic movement or of being spring-loaded so that the opposed sealing surfaces move toward and away from each other for accomodating the different thicknesses in achieving the sealing function.